Saturday, 16 August 2014

Stain-proof shirt firm eyes commercial launch

Cape Town - A company that uses
innovative material used to produce shirts promises that they will not
get wet. That's the promise Aamir Patel, CEO of Silic, is making buyers
of his new shirts.

Unlike current waterproofing chemical agents
that Patel says have been proven unsafe, the 21-year-old enterpreneur
and his team have developed a process that uses silica, a natural
mineral used in the production of cement, to produce clothes that are
super hydrophobic.
"On the nano-scale when we bind it to the fiber
it is physically repelling hydrogen atoms. So anything that is water
based is not going to be able to touch it. So what happens is that it
creates a very high surface tension and with that surface tension the
water molecules kind of bead up so they turn into spheres, and in that
form they can roll off the shirt very easily," said Patel.
The company raised nearly $300 000 in crowd funding efforts and Patel said the first orders will be shipping soon.
"The
first time I did it as I spilled an entire jug of water all over my
shirt and it came off dry I was mind blown. And now as I show that to
more and more people it seems like it's a very, it's a repeating process
of people saying 'wow' and, you know, they get this head rush of you
know 'I want to put this on socks shoes pants, everything that is out
there.' So I think it is a technology that is going to become very
versatile," he added.
Patel is also experimenting with other
materials that he says will add form and function to fashion. He
believes nanotechnology has the potential to create wearable
technologies that can change shape, monitor your health and eventually
connect to the internet.
For now, Patel says, he is content knowing that his shirts will help even the messiest eaters clean up their act.